Basic test of sovereignty: to what extent the state controls its own energy.
For fuels in our country, the answer is — almost nothing.
Moscow holds the refinery. Washington holds the traffic light of the sanctions regime. We are between them.
This was commented on "Facebook" by Daniel Lorer.
On July 22, the National Assembly approved the American tankers in Bezmer. The American president publicly thanked the Bulgarian prime minister. Days later, Washington again extended the window for negotiations on the sale of Lukoil. The sequence is indicative.
You will say: this is the case for every sanctioned Russian asset. Not quite. Rosneft and Lukoil were sanctioned at the same time.
Rosneft's German assets received an indefinite exemption from Washington, and Bulgarian Lukoil is making it subject to temporary renewals. Why?
Because since 2022, Germany has placed Rosneft under state guardianship. Moscow remained the owner on paper, but without management, revenue, and control. Three and a half years later, Berlin made the regime indefinite by law. A week later, Washington responded with an indefinite derogation. Stable law — stable status.
In our country, the special governor was introduced late and hastily, and has been tottering ever since: vetoes, overrides, constitutional complaints, curtailed powers.
Washington sees 4 years of consistent policy in Berlin, and in Sofia — sloppy. That's why our green light is only on for months ahead, and each time we wait for someone else to switch it on.
That's why I've been defending two theses since the beginning of the war:
1/ We should have taken over operational control in 2022 with a real law, written to stand up in court, like the German one.
2/ Lukoil is a vertical monopoly: import, processing, storage, transportation and sale in one hand. The CPC can demand its separation. It's not exotic — in the merger of Orlen and Lotos in Poland, the EC approved it only after the chain was dismembered: a refinery for one buyer, warehouses for another, gas stations for a third.
Sovereignty is not rhetoric. It is institutions that act on time and laws that endure.
The question is not whether we are with Washington or with Moscow.
The question is whether we have our own policy, or will we continue to live at the intersection of foreign decisions.